It seems to be a badge of honor in the workplace if someone “eats at their desk” and/or forgoes lunch altogether to continue working.  I ate at my desk last week after diligently taking a lunch break for the last 2 months and felt a big difference.  While eating at my desk, I felt the need to eat quickly, didn’t enjoy my lunch, wasn’t satiated and realized I ate too much.  I was not practicing mindful or intuitive eating….AT ALL.  So, the afternoon brought a stomachache, general feeling of dissatisfaction, snacking and distraction.  I didn’t feel these symptoms when I took just 20-30 minutes away from my desk to eat.

Is someone who eats at their desk more qualified, dedicated or better at their job because they don’t take a break over someone who does?  Everyone needs to make their own decision regarding this because there are times when it’s necessary to work through or skip lunch.  Maybe this decision isn’t an “all or nothing” proposition.

I have decided that I will be taking my lunch break. I’m interested to see if I feel differently this week than last week after lunch – I’ll take note and report back next week!

Although I may process and learn from the “scale incident” for a while, I wanted to share what may be my final thought on the matter, however, I reserve the right to have another final thought at a later time!  When it comes to weight, body image and diets, I think scales should be thrown away.  Who created those height and weight charts to which we try to conform?  Why did those charts become the “gold standard” by which we judge ourselves so harshly?  Maybe we should stop focusing on the “number” and focus, instead, on our health status and the way we feel.  I think we’d all be happier.

Here’s the continuation of Buddha’s poem that I started writing about last week.  I hope you enjoy!

“Do not put your faith in traditions only because they have been honored by many generations.”

I know that I have continued to do things just because “they are what we’ve always done” or because NOT doing them will hurt someone else’s feelings.  It was easier to bury my head in the sand than to have an uncomfortable conversation about what I REALLY wanted to do.  But, I have a feeling that honesty may just garner a better reaction than expected.  Maybe mustering up the courage to break tradition is worth it.

I’ve found that the hardest part about recovery is allowing myself to feel.  For as long as I can remember, I binged to avoid feeling as it was more comfortable to eat than to REALLY feel pain, sadness, anxiety and even happiness.

Now that I’m not bingeing, this maelstrom of feelings has invaded my body!  I find, however, that once I allow myself to actually FEEL, I relax into them, sit with them, embrace them and relish the experience no matter how uncomfortable.  You see, I’ve noticed that the feelings are usually temporary and I come out stronger in the end, especially if I’ve avoided that urge to binge.

I have been processing the shock of the “number” this entire week and, thanks to my mom’s help, have devised a strategy that I think will help me feel better about this entire situation.

Reality is what it is and can’t be changed, the key to emotional peace is to choose how you think about that reality.  In my experience, when you get a strong dose of reality, you have a visceral reaction that can be good, bad or indifferent.  Once these feelings are acknowledged and dissipate, you can begin to process.  During processing, you must choose the perception you buy into, meaning you can focus on the positive or the negative thoughts surrounding that reality.  If the reality is painful, reinforcing the pain with negative thoughts serves no purpose other than to make you feel worse, thereby, perpetuating misery.  Who needs that?!?!

So, I will strive to focus on the positive:  how much I have accomplished since my diagnosis, my improved relationships and health status and my smaller jeans size.  This is the harder path but the only road I can see to achieving greater self-acceptance, understanding and love.  Something tells me this will be easier said than done.  🙂

Although the shock of seeing my weight number on Monday has worn off, I am still reeling from it.  I have had this overwhelming sense of sadness and am still trying to decipher why.  Yesterday, my therapist had me describe how my body felt and then asked me to recall the first time I remembered feeling this way.  I answered, almost immediately, that it was in 7th grade when a friend with whom I was fighting told me that my new haircut made my face look fat.

This weight number has triggered a reaction that, I suspect, is resulting from something buried deep in my subconscious.  I’m happy that I’ll be seeing my therapist later today to see if I can make head or tails of this experience.  My journey has included a few of these intense, extreme and uncomfortable episodes where their end has marked a leap forward in my recovery.  I’m holding faith that this will be another.

Yesterday, I had a physical.  It went really well, my doctor lowered my blood pressure medication and was satisfied with my lifestyle strategies overall.  When the nurse weighed me, I asked her to do a “blind” weight.  In the eating disorder world, patients are encouraged to forgo weighing themselves independent of the treatment staff who use weights as a metric to gauge treatment success.  We get weighed but aren’t told the number, hence, “blind” weights.  Over the last couple of months, I have been so tempted to get on the scale (I haven’t seen “my number” in a year and a half) but have resisted because I knew it wouldn’t contribute positively to my recovery.

When I got home from the visit, I was feeling good but then reviewed my visit summary and, unbeknownst to me, my weight was staring me in the face and it wasn’t pretty.  I went from feeling good to feeling crappy in 0.2 seconds.  I was blindsided, I cried, I was disappointed, angry and dejected.  Of course, I wasn’t focusing on the positive but on that stupid number because it was nowhere near where I wanted it to be.  Even though I have improved my eating habits, almost eliminated my binge episodes and lost 3 sizes, it still wasn’t good enough.  So, I spent part of the night allowing myself to feel crappy and then trying to make myself feel better by reiterating all of my accomplishments over the last year and a half.  The good news is that I didn’t binge about it and the bad news is I still know that gosh darn number.

It’s winter and since I grew up and live in the Northeast, we get snow!  I have fond memories of snowstorms growing up where we baked while cozy at home, therefore, the association of baking during snowstorms is natural.  Well, we got a snowstorm on Thursday and, SURPRISE, I wanted to bake.  Although I follow a food plan where I eat what I want in a mindful way (eating when hungry and stopping when full) and no food is taboo, I wanted to avoid the pitfall of a potential binge after the baking was done!  They tell me that awareness is the first step in heading off the urge so I was happy I identified the all too familiar feeling.

So, what did I do?  Well, I thought about stopping at the local grocery to buy ingredients for my favorite food, chocolate chip cookies, until I remembered the last time.   I ate some each day for days but didn’t binge on them, however, after the treats were gone, I really didn’t feel great about having eaten them.

I have found, after being in recovery for a year and a half, that I have delved deeper into mindful eating where I try to anticipate the way I may feel after eating.  Since I didn’t feel great the last time I indulged, I decided that I didn’t want to feel that way again. Proudly, I resisted the trip to the grocery this time!

I’m happy that this is 1 stepping stone closer to hitting my LifeStride!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve been thinking about New Year’s Resolutions and trying to decide if I think they’re good, bad or neutral.  Here’s what I’ve come up with:  I think most resolutions are unrealistic and are, therefore, broken resulting in feelings of failure.  In this case, I can do without them.

Maybe a better strategy is to resolve to do the things in life that make you feel good and happy…taking up a new hobby, identifying your passion, calling {insert name here} more or looking in the mirror and saying something nice to yourself.  This year, I don’t think it should involve weight or diets or exercise or any of the self-loathing that goes along with those types of resolutions.

So, I am choosing a resolution that will result in good things and not in negative feelings and that is to practice “living mindfully and in the moment” because, when it comes down to it, that is all we have.

Happy New Year and heart-felt wishes for the best ever 2014!!

Some of you may be wondering what “LifeStrides:  Stepping Stones to Wellness”  means.  Well, this is the name of the Treatment Center that will be opened in 2014 to treat people with binge-eating disorder, obesity and other issues related to unhealthy relationships with food, diets and weight.

Life strides forward are best made through stepping stones (small successes) that ultimately add up to create a better, more fulfilling life.

The mission of the Center is to free people from the self-inflicted torture of diets and exercise that don’t work and focus on strategies that WILL work to create healthy bodies, minds and souls.